It’s official, the Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment has jumped the final approval hurdle in a unanimous vote and is about to cross the finish line. The Virgin Hotel at Las Vegas will house the first tribal casino in Sin City’s fabled gaming scene.
Gambling regulators in the Silver State have given the final approval for the first tribal operated casino in the legendary Las Vegas gambling scene. The Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) rubberstamped the license application for the Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment (MGE) in a unanimous vote on Thursday to allow the tribal gaming entity to debut a casino at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas property.
This approval follows another correspondingly unanimous ruling that was made by the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) a fortnight ago. Thanks to the thumbs up received from the NGCB and the NGC, it is now official that the Mohegan Sun casino at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas will open its doors for business on 15th January 2021 after the completion of an ongoing remodeling in the property. The said location for the new tribal casino was initially the home for Hard Rock Las Vegas before the latter shut down its operations back in February.
Like the first NGCB vote, Thursday’s NGC vote was cast via an online meeting in which executives from the MGE and Mohegan tribal leaders were grilled by members of the Commission. MGE executives had flown in to the Silver State specifically for this momentous hearing, but the tribal leaders attended the meeting virtually, live from their Uncasville tribal HQ.
A Tremendous Growth Opportunity for Both Mohegan and Sin City
After the much-anticipated NGC approval, Mario Kontomerkos the Chief Executive Officer of the MGE welcomed the development in a forward-looking statement on Friday as follows;
Quote“Becoming the first-ever Native American casino operator in the ‘Entertainment Capital of the World’ is an important milestone for Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment, … Coming out of a challenging year for the industry, Mohegan Sun Casino at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is a testament to our strategic growth trajectory, and we are excited to offer our Connecticut guests a new world-class Mohegan gaming experience in the legendary and diverse Las Vegas market.”
As part of Kontomerkos’ statement, the approval is a strategic opportunity for the MGE to achieving its industry goals, including offering a total of over 22,000 employment opportunities by 2025. Speaking of offering more employment opportunities, according to MGE officials, 300 of the staffers who lost their jobs when Hard Rock Las Vegas was closed were offered new jobs by the tribal gaming group.
Deborah J. Fuetsch an NGC commissioner also chimed in after her team okayed the first tribal gaming facility in the state, citing Mohegan’s shining background by saying;
Quote“I will say that this is a very impressive group of individual applicants — very clean backgrounds with not a single hiccup. With that many, usually we have one or two that we might have a couple of questions about their background. But this group was very impressive and really there was nothing that jumped out on any of the applicants.”
Commissioner Deborah also argued that granting the MGE license approval was a surefire move to welcome new industrious investors to Sin City and the state at large, making it a win for both the MGE and the city.
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